Monday, 20 April 2015

Since I first wrote about them back in 2008, I've always considered e-cigs to carry the potential to expose the cant and hypocrisy of the tobacco control industry. And they are delivering in spades of late.

It shows the laughable standards to which the World Health Organisation adheres, for example, that they class mad mechanic Stan Glantz as one of their go-to experts on vaping. His insane wibblings on the subject are - to the casual reader - indistinguishable from parody at times. Yesterday is a case in point.

[The Smoke Free Alternatives Trade Association] is actively trying to undermine the CDC's Tips for Former Smokers campaign by posting this ad, which looks exactly like the Tips ads, except that it endorses e-cigarettes as a cessation device.

These kind of look-alike campaigns (as they are also running against California with this campaign) may seem funny, but, as explained in the film Merchants of Doubt, are used to confuse the public and public policy makers.

Confuse the public and policy makers? OK, let's have a look at one of these 'CDC Tips' ads which are being 'undermined', shall we?

The inference, of course, is that e-cigs contributed to this problem for Kristy. Except that the real story (which most Americans won't find) is significantly different.

"I tried e-cigarettes, but I just ended up using both the electronic kind and my regular brand," she said. Eventually, Kristy quit e-cigarettes and went back to just smoking cigarettes.

So the inclusion of e-cigs in that ad is entirely irrelevant. It is the very definition of a "campaign to confuse the public and public policy makers" which Stan condemns.

The copy may as well have read "I started using nicotine patches ... until my lung collapsed", or "I started using Champix ... until my lung collapsed", or "I started chewing a carrot ... until my lung collapsed". It is nothing but a cleverly worded smear against e-cigs, designed to put people off trying them.

There quite simply is no "likelihood" whatsoever, let alone a "significant" one. Again, this is just another tobacco control industry 'merchant of doubt' trying to pretend that there is a problem. One might even call Frieden's statement one designed to "confuse the public and public policy makers", eh?

Back in the real world, what Glantz is attempting - and what has been the modus operandi of tobacco controllers for the past couple of decades - is to pretend that the truth is whatever Glantz says it is, and that anyone opposing him should be ignored. The debate is over once aircraft engineer Glantz and his sociologist tobacco control chums have formed an opinion, and if you disagree you must be a tobacco industry shill or an 'astroturf' mouthpiece.

Sadly for Stan, no-one is buying his shit on e-cigs, however much the WHO pimp it out. His industry employed the same lies, misdirection and torturing of facts towards smoking, and was largely successful because there are a lot of vehemently anti-smoking people willing to believe any old crap if it condemns tobacco. The same doesn't apply to e-cigs, with only the most anti-social cretins and curtain-twitching prodnoses - you know, the type of utter bore you cross the road to avoid on the way back from the shops - being remotely bothered by vaping.

Up and down the UK (and, I suspect the US too) - most especially in working class areas in my experience - the presence of e-cigs is becoming ever more visibly prevalent if not ubiquitous in places. From burly bin men to latte-sipping credit controllers, e-cigs are becoming a normal part of everyday life and a respected alternative to smoking.

Glantz and his irrational hatred of e-cigs is fast isolating him in a corner he painted for himself. The only way out for him now is a conversion of epiphanic proportion which turns him into advocate of e-cigs, or some hitherto undiscovered ailment which starts affecting vapers in huge numbers. But considering the most damning studies thus far, after a decade since e-cigs started becoming mainstream, tend to warn of such catastrophes as an itchy throat, I don't rate his chances much.

Like some crack addict clutching a lottery ticket and confidently predicting that better times are just around the corner, Stan's lunacy towards e-cigs is determining his future. It's a sad one of producing fantasy blog articles of diminishing interest to the serious medical community, whilst desperately craving the advent of a miracle e-cig-borne disease which will rescue his accelerating descent into scientific obscurity and irrelevance.

18 comments:

He can't retire, he's in an easy job which gives him cash just for turning up. He doesn't even need to be objective or correct. He'll carry on dribbling stupidity into his beard for years to come. #Addicted

There is a big difference between the SHS scam and the attempt to reuse the old "proven" tactics against ecigs: US and the net.

Back then, only few people had easy access. To other people and to scientific studies. Back then the flow of information was almost exclusively one way. Excretions from the lofty ivory tower dropping down hitting the mass media fans. And the peasants had to swallow the result. No convenient way to verify the claims for most. No convenient way to find many like minded sceptics. No convenient way to spread the word. No convenient way to interact with the ivory tower.

And here we come. People from all walks of life. Spontaniously connecting and organizing resistance. Glantz and his henchman can't comprehend this. They just can't grasp all the new dynamic. They need a single monolithic opponent as a target. they can't conceive of a swarm of termites eroding the foundations of their ivory towers. It's already crumbling and they are in denial. Soon they'll be in de nile. Still without a clue how that could happened. Learn to swim or drown ... Quit or die.

Never a truer word said, NZ. I showed Puddlecote Inc's resident anti-smoker this video today and she was appalled.

She's sold on e-cigs and thinks they are tremendous, can't understand those who are opposed to them. She is a born again ex-smoker but sees sense in UKIP's amendment to the smoking ban as she knows what it's like to smoke and just doesn't want to be bothered by it any more. It's all starting to piece together in her mind, there are many others who will see that they've been conned once e-cigs begin to be taxed and have ad restrictions placed on them.

This is what scares the die hard tobacco controllers, nothing to do with kids. They're more worried that their previous indiscretions will be found out. The clever ones are working out that they are in an indefensible position with e-cigs and it's better to keep their SHS myth-making genie in the bottle; the stupid ones - like Glantz - will carry on spouting nonsense and betray the whole charade. ;)

Um - teensy point -"most recently in Wales, but also in the UK"? Blooper! I am still happily resident in the UK Dick and may it long continue so. I think Stan the man is one of our greatest asses, assets sorry.

2015 the year of tobacco control junk science. This article in The Conversation is based on a press release, of a study from 2012 that hasn't even been released publicly yet, but that hasn't stopped Chapman from using it to bash vaping, and compare the stories of vapers to people trying to make excuses for drunk driving. Truly a pathetic and desperate attempt to stop people making the switch to vaping. Another one for the orange jumpsuit brigade : https://theconversation.com/want-to-quit-smoking-switching-to-e-cigarettes-wont-help-40499

If he retires, who's bullshit "studies" and blog posts am I going to hose myself over? Stan the man provides much entertainment, the crap he tries to pass off as the truth is hilarious - and even funnier is that he thinks people still buy his bullshit.

Absolutely agree. Except that in the specific case of "I started using Champix"...she might have been subject to "suicidal thoughts" and even commit some "suicidal actions" (check Champix own site for side effects if you don't believe me). Now this has never been on the menu of Mr.Glantz and the likes of him.

My God, this man should be in a lunatic asylum - and I don't mean a mental health hospital!

He is obviously feeling the pinch in his pocket from not getting enough incentive from big pharma as their income from NRT gets smaller! Then again, if big pharma were more savvy and not so erroneously greedy and didn't price new medications for all diseases out of the pocket of the NHS, they might make more in the long term without having to rely so much on NRT!

Back to Stanton: you say he was an aircraft engineer; boy am I glad I never (knowingly) flew in one of the aircraft he worked on as with his twisted view on things who knows what he would have done for any kind of warped reason!

As it stood, the Tobacco Industry paid, one way or another, huge sums to governments which helped them buy hugely overpriced (despite the costs of research) sums to big pharma. As less money is now paid to government with people either quitting smoking, using e-cigs (instead of NRT) or buying their supplies abroad, they are unable to pay the huge sums big pharma demand for life saving drugs! Looks like it all turned around and bit them hard on the bum! Sadly it means that people are dying for the want of a drug that is available but not affordable and others spend the rest of their days suffering because they can only be prescribed cheaper drugs that are far less effective than more expensive ones that are available. It is an utter disgrace and a war with the Tobacco Industry that big pharma are largely to blame for and are happy to use us poor mortals as hostages!

It seems almost inevitable that ecig juices will be taxed. Some excuse will be found. What I think might be horrifying the Zealots is that there will be no reason for that tax to be funnelled to them. As people replace tobacco (especially cigarettes) with ecigs, not really for health reasons but rather for cost reasons, the 'raison d'etre' for tobacco control gradually ceases to exist. The writing is on the wall for people like Grantz (sorry, Glantz). They can see that the drying up of grant funding is clearly visible on the horizon.

I believe fragmentation of the Uk is a disaster, being governed by a party controlled by Alex Salmond (or the lovely Nicola) unthinkable, in the hands of anti-ecig bigots like Drakesford is out - can anyone direct me to a genuine Social Democrat Party please? Or does my hand have to wither as I place a Tory X for the first time since Thatcher? Nah - can't do that, or can I? Plaid? You have to be joking! Guess I'm still a "Don't Know"

Great video sums it up very well and easy to understand for non US people. It is a crazy world out there and just getting worse. I am stocking up in supplies as it is going crazy and going to take a lot of time and effort to turn it around.